South East Southend 2020-11-14 night

[Wattsy]

During the day I'd tried a few practice casts off the beach and managed a magnificent over run which I spent ages and ages unpicking before I took the side of the reel and eventually gave up and managed to snap the line and tie it together so I could retrieve the lead. Note to self - always take some scissors with you and when you think you should go home because you've passed the peak, do. While I was trying to untangle the line the wind picked up and I decided against fishing that night.

Half the reason I'd had in mind to fish that night was the bigger tide and reasonable (barely) time. The other half was to try out the new Fenix headlamp I'd bought - walking around the hall with the lights off only gives you so much idea and I'm pretty sure I'd wind the neighbours up using it in the garden too much. So at 22:00 I trudged down to the beach to give it a go. It's a decent bit of kit and if the on paper battery life is anywhere near accurate, worth every penny.

While I was down there I saw some people in the distance fishing behind Adventure Island so went to see how they were doing. One of them was pulling in a double shot of undersized whiting when I got there, the wind seemed tolerable so I whizzed back to get my gear and have a few casts myself as it was two hours before high and plenty of fish were coming out already.

Predictably it was a massive whiting fest. But that's what it'd come for so no complaints.

I had a three hook boom rig with 1/0 Varivas semi-circle hooks on with squid strip which I was lobbing out fairly close. Plenty of action on that rod. On the other rod I had a 2/0 with half a party squid whipped on that I put out a bit further. The fish must have read @bass post here as that went relatively untouched (and previously on the beach I'd had them attack whole calamari on pennels until one managed to get a hook in their mouth so it really seemed like I'd cast over the fish). If I put it in closer, it got bites.

The semi-circles worked pretty well with about 2/3 of the fish being lip hooked. The other 1/3 came off with a Gemini Disgorger (the T-Bar with a loop instead of a hook). Most of the fish seemed to go back which was good - I think I only noticed one doing back stroke so that was good.

The big bait did pick out a better fish at 31cm but mostly they were under sized.

The wind picked up towards 2am and it was constant rain in my face and as the tide had dropped the leads were catching in the bladderwrack at the base of the sea wall so I started packing up.

And my tripod blew over so one of my previously immaculate aAkios reels has some cosmetic dinks in the top, the top bar of my Shakespeare Saltist tripod has clearly been bent back into shape (something to consider if you're reading this because you've done a search to answer the age old "which tripod?" question. I still don't regret buying it) and the tip ring on one rod has shattered and the butt ring on another shattered. Fortunately my OCD on having matching rods has paid off as I've effectively only lost two rods instead of one.

Replacing tip rings is one thing but the butt ring I don't really fancy.

So all in all, that headlamp has cost me a lot more than I paid for it ?

 

[Bass&Chips]

And it was going so well. Unlucky on the tripod failure. It's not hard to whip on a new eye, just takes patience and a bit of varnish.

 

[Wattsy]

And it was going so well. Unlucky on the tripod failure. It's not hard to whip on a new eye, just takes patience and a bit of varnish.

It's getting the existing one off that bothers me!

 

[Wattsy]

I've just ordered some liners from eBay - £10 for two sets of 12 with a wait of between 2 weeks and 2 months ... hopefully they'll pop into the frames and I won't have to worry about whipping and gluing! It's worth a punt in my book.

 

[Shirleycodlin]

Thanks for the report.
No need to re wrap, just pop the liner out of a new guide and press it into the old frame. A Dab of araldite will secure it.

 

[Wattsy]

Thanks for the report.
No need to re wrap, just pop the liner out of a new guide and press it into the old frame. A Dab of araldite will secure it.

Nice one, cheers. I've ordered some liners from fleabay. If and when they arrive I'll have a selection so I can afford a few more calamities!

 

[Tatunka joe]

Sorry to here about the rods well done on a productive sesh tho they gemmini disgorges kick ass?

 

[Wattsy]

If anyone's interested, I managed to get the new liners back in. I want sure I'd manage at first but figured it out in the end.

The top of the butt ring had ever so slightly deformed and flattened when it hit the ground and in fairness to the guides, the frame wouldn't bend back. The knack was to line the bottom of the liner up with the still round part at the bottom and ease it in until it would go no further so that at the very top, most if not all of the liner was proud of the frame. I probably should have taken some photos instead of trying to explain but I'm not taking it out again! From there, I used an adjustable spanner (nearly closed) in such a way that one edge was on the protruding side of the ring and the other's corner was nicking the opposite edge of the frame at the point where the ring started to protrude (at three or nine o'clock say if the rod was six and the flattened part twelve). Then with a tiny twist I was able to ease the ring in a little. I carried on doing this alternating sides until it had been worked back in.

The tip was more straightforward - the frame had bent slightly such that if you looked side on there was a slight v shape. I bent this as straight as I could with needle nosed pliers and tried the same sort of thing with the pliers (the tip being that much smaller). I wasn't liking my chances as getting that 'lever' was much trickier as was holding it in place but it basically just pinged into place to my surprise.

Before I actually use it, I'll add a tiny bit of epoxy resin on either side to stack the odds of it lasting in my favour but overall I'm pretty happy and the rod should be back to its previous condition.